


every star in the galaxy

by alekszova



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, One Shot, Past Child Abuse, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-03-28
Packaged: 2019-10-19 13:11:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17601998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekszova/pseuds/alekszova
Summary: DBH Rarepairs Week: Day 3 - StarsGavin shows Connor his scars (and his tattoos).





	1. Chapter 1

His skin is a map of his life. There is barely a square inch on him that isn’t tainted by scars or inked with some tattoo snaking it’s way between them, and if there is, a bruise is usually in its place, ready to take ownership of unclaimed land. When they first got together, this was his biggest fear. Connor seeing them, questioning them. It isn’t telling the stories of how he got them that terrifies him—it’s the reaction. He doesn’t want to see disgust mar his features and he doesn’t want to see pity in his eyes. Most of the scars are old, most of the tattoos are new. But there is a little mix the other way too. He hasn’t always been good.

“You had your ears pierced,” Connor says, holding his face in his hands, turning his head to the side. “Did you have a punk phase?”

“All the angsty teens did,” he replies. Normally, he’d remove Connor’s hands from his face. Keep them away. He doesn’t like the kisses to his nose, even if the gentleness of them takes away how much he loathes the scar there. He doesn’t like to feel the soft touches of fingers move along his jaw, reminding him of how many times he’s had to hold ice to it while a bruise blossomed underneath.

“How long did it last?”

“Probably still in it. You see my leather jacket?”

Connor smiles, and it lessens the tension the slightest bit. He needs this softness right now. Keep the nerves just the tiniest fraction at bay.

“I don’t know if a leather jacket qualifies, but I’ll allow it.”

“Thanks,” he says quietly, looking away, off towards the floor. Connor’s hands hold on a little tighter, forcing his gaze back to his own. He leans down, kissing Gavin slowly, drawing it out, drawing _this_ out.

His stomach is in a bundle of anxiety, like this is his first time. It’s not even _their_ first time. They’ve had sex before. Gavin was just very careful about keeping his clothes on. So was Connor. He never takes that shirt off, he rarely even undoes the tie around his neck.

Gavin reaches for it, drawing Connor closer. He can deal with the apprehension right now. The tremble in his hands, the slight fuzziness in the back of his head. It’s better than the reveal of how Connor is going to look at him. How much it’s going to change them.

Connor pulls away, his hands dropping from Gavin’s face to his shoulders, Gavin’s dropping from the tie to Connor’s waist, holding him a little to tightly.

“We don’t have to do this.”

“I know. I want to.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he says, and it comes out thick, as if he’s shouting it from underwater, trying to get it past a barrier stuck between voice and tongue. “I’m sure.”

“We can stop—”

“At any time. I know. I told you that once.”

Connor smiles, just barely. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Okay,” he says, moving his hands to the hem of his shirt. “Lift your arms up.”

It takes Gavin a moment to move. He wants this more than anything in the world. Mostly to get it over with, so he doesn’t have to worry about what Connor might think when his hands move up underneath the hem of his shirt and graces the edges of scar tissue. He wants something to happen, too. Cause a distraction so he doesn’t have to go through with it yet. He isn’t ready, but he’s aware he never will be. He moves his hands away from Connor’s waist slowly, lifting them above his head.

The fingers touching his skin are ice cold, dragging across them slowly as the shirt comes up above his head. Not even half of them are revealed now. Exposed in the cold of the room. His back is hidden, his jeans are still on. Connor’s hand trails down his chest, not lingering or stopping on anything for too long. Taking in the warzone that is his skin. He would almost like the feeling of it—the tenderness of fingers making a line down his torso—if it weren’t for the look on Connor’s face, the context of the situation.

“Can I—”

“Yeah,” he says, without listening to the last half of the question. They’d already talked about this before. A long discussion about why Gavin doesn’t undress when they’re in bed together. Why he hides away in the bathroom when he changes his clothes. Why he is always wearing long sleeves.

The only person to ever see the ink on his skin is the artist that put it there. The tattoos were never meant for anyone’s eyes except his own. They are reminders. Stuck to his skin in a different manner than the scars.

“Okay,” Connor says quietly, moving his hand upwards, stopping at the scar along his shoulder, the one that curves upwards, is often unhidden by the collars of his shirts. “This one?”

“Motorcycle accident.”

He nods, moving his hand to another one, a long line up the side of his body. He looks up at Gavin with a question in his eyes.

“Car accident.”

Another nod. His hands skating across his skin to various scars. The same responses seeming to come out of Gavin’s mouth each time. _Motorcycle. Car. Gunshot. Stabbed. Motorcycle. Motorcycle. Yes, again. Different accident. My dad._

The last one makes Connor stop. His fingers lingering against it before moving away slowly, finding a tattoo a few inches below it.

“And this?”

“I like cats.”

“There’s a date underneath it.”

“Yeah,” he says with a shrug. “There is.”

He doesn’t provide more detail, and he’s thankful that Connor doesn’t push. He doesn’t know why it’s more difficult to talk about a cat’s death versus his father’s abuse. It’s just different. He can’t explain it. He can’t put it into words. Like he’s dissociated himself from the abuse but the death of his very first cat still lingers in the back of his mind, constantly fresh and always ready to spring tears in his eyes. They are both wounds that haven’t healed, that he never tended too.

“Gavin,” he says, slowly tracing a dotted line across his chest. “What is this?”

“Unfinished,” he says quietly, moving Connor’s hand to his heart, where the sun has been inked in great detail. “It’s the…”

“Planetary orbit.”

“Yes.”

“You like space,” Connor says, but his hand doesn’t move. Gavin watches his gaze, the way it drifts carefully across his skin. Looking at each and every little star and planet on him. Mostly, the stars. They are everywhere. Taking up the small spaces between scars. Making something beautiful out of something ugly.

“I do.”

“Can I ask why?”

“You can. Go ahead.”

Connor smiles, a little laugh caught between his lips before it can escape, “Alright. Why do you like space, Detective Reed?”

“It’s comforting,” he says, letting go of Connor’s hand, but it stays against his skin, flattening out over his heart. “It means there’s more to life than…”

He doesn’t want to say it. He doesn’t know how to say it without sounding like he is minimizing the damage his father caused. He doesn’t know how to put it into words that it’s comforting how vast the galaxy is. How much is out there. How much he still has to live for. Just that the abuse is something traumatic and unforgettable, unforgivable, but there is life after it, too. There is life after everything.

“Did you want to be an astronaut?” Connor asks instead.

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “Space is a little terrifying, too, you know.”

“Too big?”

“Yes.”

But that bigness is a little comforting in its own respect, too. He might spill his coffee on his papers or drop something somewhere he can’t reach, but it is a tiny error. Swallowed up by how horrifyingly massive the universe is. It’s a reminder not to get too worked up over the small things.

Connor taught him that. His nose in books about the solar system. Flipping through the pages constantly, looking at the pictures. Connor might have taught him to find comfort in space, but the tattoos aren’t meant for him, either. He always liked how stars looked before. They were the one thing that comforted him when he was a child. Kicked out to sleep in the backyard if he got home too late. Shoved out the front door when his father discovered magazines in his bedroom with pictures of naked men instead of naked women. They were the one thing that reminded him that there is beauty in life. It just didn’t carry over into something important until Connor showed up, until the guilt of one little punch weighed him down.

“Con?”

“Do you want to stop?” he asks, looking up to meet Gavin’s gaze.

“No,” Gavin replies, and he means it. This has been easier than he thought it would be. “I just… I love you.”

He always smiles the same way when Gavin tells him this. The same as the first time he told him, just a couple weeks ago. It breaks his face in half, it makes his eyes light up a little more. And he leans forward and places a soft kiss against Gavin’s lips.

“I love you, too,” he says, resting there for a moment, staying close to him, his hand still pressed over his heart. Gavin wonders if he can feel how fast it’s beating right now. The thrum of it against his chest. He wishes Connor could open him up, lay it to rest. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Trusting me.”

He wants to say something, but he can’t quite get himself to voice it. He wants to thank Connor for teaching _him_ how to trust in the first place. He wants to thank him for teaching him how to love, too. For loving Gavin to begin with. For giving him a second chance when he didn’t deserve it.

“This one,” he says instead, lacing his fingers over Connor’s where they rest at his heart, moving them down a little further to a rose with petals infecting his galaxy. It disappears below his waist band, has a few roses beneath it on his thigh, different stages of growth. “Is the oldest one.”

“Does it mean something?”

“Yes—” he says, catching Connor before he can pull away and investigate it. “Wait.”

“What?”

“Kiss me again first.”

And he does. Leaning into Gavin again, pressing his lips against his. Not in the same gentle way that he did before, but not the hunger that can sometimes consume the two of them. The kind that always leads to hands wandering underneath shirts and down the front of pants. It is somewhere in the middle—

It reminds him of their first kiss. In that elevator three months ago. Connor saying something, teasing Gavin to the point where he couldn’t handle it anymore. He had shoved him back against the wall, leaned in close enough to kiss him—

Chickened out at the last second, realizing the gravity of the situation, the way it would alter them. The way it would throw their unstable friendship to the wolves to be devoured.

And then Connor had pushed him back, turned him so that he was the one pressed against the wall, kissing him so abruptly that he was gasping for air and holding on tight and not willing to let go, even when the doors opened on their floor, the bell above them ringing. When they should have parted and went back to their investigation, they had stayed there long enough for the doors to close again, for it to be called to the second floor, for them to force apart so as not to get caught.

It is the kind of kiss that leaves his brain a little like static. Focusing on the movements of their lips together, the feeling in his stomach. Not butterflies. It’s different from butterflies. And it isn’t like a warmth spreading through him. It feels a little bit like something sweet. Like his blood has turned to honey. A rightness in the world. A reaffirmation that they should be together.

They haven’t even been together long. He was terrified of telling Connor that he loved him. He was terrified of saying those words out loud. They slipped out by accident, he had tried to recover himself, and Connor had laughed and kissed him and said it back, burying his face into his shoulder, holding him tight.

He hadn’t loved someone in so long he didn’t know if this was it. If this was the feeling he had forgotten. It felt so new and strange, but it also snuck up on him. It wasn’t a revelation he had suddenly in the middle of the night. Saying the words didn’t make it true—but it did make him realize they _were_ true.

The kiss breaks slowly, a reluctance between the two of them as Connor pulls away. His gaze shifts to the tattoo his hand is pressed against, his fingers tracing the petals on the flower.

“Are you going to break my heart, Con?”

“No,” he says. “Are you going to break mine?”

“Wouldn’t fucking dream of it.”

“Good,” he says, resting a hand against Gavin’s cheek. He turns into it, pressing a kiss against his palm. He almost doesn’t see where Connor’s gaze turns to next, where his left hand moves to his forearm, trailing across the skin. He is almost consumed by the softness of the touch, the words in the air, the look on Connor’s face.

But he does catch it. He feels the fingers make their way from elbow to wrist. Not pausing on anything specific.

“Gavin?”

“What do you want to know?” he asks. “The scars or the tattoo?”

Connor looks back up with him, his features twisted into an expression that reads as a refusal to answer the question. He wants to know about both. He wants an answer to both.

“The scars are from my dad,” Gavin replies, tempted to turn his arm, to shield Connor’s sight from them. But he doesn’t. He lets Connor look at the old cigarette burns littering his skin. He doesn’t have the stories behind each and every one anymore. They faded with time, left in a bundle of not truly knowing anything except the anger and the tears attached to them. “The other one is a quote.”

“It’s in binary code.”

“I didn’t want anyone to read it,” he says. “I didn’t think an android would see it, either.”

But the irony isn’t lost on him, either. Zeros and ones decorating his skin in a careful spiral, looping strategically through the spaces in his scars. He had hated androids when he got it, he had considered getting it translated to another language. Let French or German be inked onto his skin instead of English.

Partially, though, he wanted it to be binary code. He wanted a reminder of his brother. How important he is. How much he still loves him even with their fights and their separation. They might never speak to each other again, but Gavin isn’t going to stop loving his brother. It wasn’t often—Gavin didn’t allow it for to happen often—but he would step in the line of fire to protect Gavin, too.

But it was usually the other way around. He made sure Elijah was safe. He was always going to make sure Elijah was safe. He’s intelligent, resourceful, motivated. He’s going to do remarkable things. He already has.

But what it really boiled down to was this:

Elijah was worth saving. Gavin was not.

“What does it say?” Connor asks.

“Read it yourself.”

Connor offers him a small smile, turning his head, lifting Gavin’s arms, reading each individual number carefully.

“‘Be a little kinder than you have to’,” Connor states. “When did you get it?”

“A few months after I met you,” he says.

_Because I hurt you,_ he doesn’t add. But it’s the truth. He only got the tattoo after he watched in horror as Connor struggled with his emotions. How sometimes his hand would gravitate to his stomach, hold there like Gavin had punched him only moments earlier. Maybe he was reading too much into it, but he always felt that wave of regret. Like a tsunami set to carry him back out to sea, pull him under with its currents, drown him with the creatures that would tear his body to pieces.

No, he is not kinder than he has to be. He is barely kind at all. But the words remind him to try, at least. And if he is trying, he is better than who he once was.

“Is everything alright?”

Gavin nods, “You can keep going.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Connor’s hands move across his skin again. Asking about more tattoos and more scars. Most of them come from accidents, some of them come from his father. Some of the tattoos have meaning, most do not. Or, at least, not something he can quite bring himself to share with Connor right now.

He feels like he’s being autopsied. Cut open and dissected for his history to be written down somewhere he doesn’t trust it at. Which isn’t even entirely true. He is just vulnerable and raw. He is comfortable with Connor knowing there is a scar on his palm from when he fell as a child. He is fine with Connor knowing that his father once spilled a pot of boiling water on his shoulder. He is fine with this. He can handle it. He trusts Connor.

It is just difficult to get the words out sometimes.

It’s easier when they talk about his inability to ride a bike, crashing his motorcycle into trees, falling down a flight of stairs. Scars that don’t have the same kind of emotional pain attached to them, draining his life away.

Connor’s hand reaches out, touches his left arm. Just barely. Gently. Like a ghost.

Gavin pulls away violently, turning it so the skin is hidden away. All of the scars left unseen. There isn’t a single tattoo on his left arm. He doesn’t like other people to see them. He doesn’t want anyone to look at them. He doesn’t want to have to explain himself. He can already feel the excuses springing to his lips.

“Gavin?” Connor asks, in that soft, soft voice of his. Quiet and concerned.

He could stop this. Push Connor off his lap. Slip his shirt on. Run away. Keep the fuck away from all of this. He doesn’t have to show him, even if Connor has likely seen them already. He doesn’t have to explain himself. He can leave that to his imagination.

But Connor is smart. He was designed to solve crime scenes. He likely already knows what they are.

Gavin turns his arm, fingers trembling again.

“You don’t have to—”

“I know,” he whispers. “But it’s…”

Inevitable.

Connor’s hand moves back to his arm, light touches across his arm. Little rectangular burn marks on his skin. They aren’t neat. They are scattered and disordered. For every one of them, there are at least three other times he pressed the metal against his skin and it didn’t leave a scar behind. It didn’t count if it didn’t leave a scar.

But he learned it was easier to burn the skin on his thigh instead. There are worse ones beside the stems of the flowers on his leg. He is intimately familiar with the smell of burning flesh, of smoke.

He could never bring himself to slice open his skin. He doesn’t mind blood, he has bled plenty of times from fights and injuries, it doesn’t bother him. But he could never bring himself to cut deep enough to leave a scar.

And it didn’t count if it didn’t leave a scar.

“Connor…”

“This one is new,” Connor says quietly, his thumb passing over a wound close to his elbow. “It’s still healing.”

_Yes. It is._

He never got help for his problems. He had to rely on himself. His willpower. His own ability to keep a lighter and a piece of metal separate from one another because if they were too close, he would think about this instead. Even if he didn’t have the urge, it would suddenly spring to his mind if he held them in his hand at the same time, if he could see both in one glance.

“Gavin?”

“I had a bad day,” he whispers. “I’m fine.”

And he couldn’t hide it away with the rest on his leg. There is hardly enough space, and every time he sees the flowers, the way they blossom, the way they represent growth, of leaving all this behind—

He cannot add a new one to that part of his skin.

His father taught him to burn himself. Punish his wrongdoings with fire. Maybe that’s why he likes Connor so much. The coldness of his fingers help ease away the inferno consuming his soul.

Gavin watches his face, the thousand of questions and thoughts flickering across his features. He doesn’t know how to respond to this. He doesn’t know what to say.

“It’s not your fault,” he says quietly. “I just—”

“Tell me next time,” Connor whispers. “Don’t… I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

He bites his lip, looking away from Connor’s face to the wall of his room, feeling the overwhelming desire to cry. Gavin can’t explain this. Not to Connor. The boy he trusts to look at his scars, to know their histories, to know meanings behind tattoos and the pain that is bone-deep. The boy he trusts with his life. The boy he loves more than anything in the entire world. The boy he’d willingly sacrifice himself to save. The boy he is absolutely terrified of losing.

He can’t explain that he feels selfish and wrong every single time he feels a bad emotion and needs to talk about it. He can’t explain that he always wants Connor’s comfort but can’t get it without telling him he’s upset. And he doesn’t want Connor to feel that way, too. To get dragged down into the horrific atrocities in his head. He can handle them on his own. He has for thirty-six years.

“Okay,” he says. “I will.”

He is unsure if he is lying or not.

“Gavin.” Connor says, stating his name this time. It doesn’t trail off into a question. It isn’t a prompt for him to say something. It’s almost a little bit angry. “I love you.”

“I know,” he whispers, and he reaches for Connor’s tie again, bringing him down into a kiss. He needs to hide away his tears like this. Keep Connor from seeing them well up in his eyes. Connor kisses him back, not quite fulfilling his need to be taken away from the present and left somewhere else.

“Gavin—” he says, breaking away, turning his head. He leans forward, pressing his lips to his jaw, to his neck. “Gavin—We should talk about this.”

“I don’t want to talk,” he whispers.

Connor starts to say something, but it’s lost as Gavin moves him backwards, pressing him flat on the mattress underneath him, and Connor looks up at him, hands moving very slowly up his chest, to his neck.

“I don’t…” he clears his throat—as if androids need to _clear their throats—_ and he looks away. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

To bury this conversation with sex? No. But it’s what he wants.

“Okay,” he says instead, words soft instead of angry like they might’ve been even just a year ago. He’s not frustrated with this—this inability to do what he wants, what he feels he _needs,_ even. He knows Connor is right. He can’t shove this aside. “Let’s talk.”

Connor smiles, just the tiniest bit. It makes him yearn for the jokes and the laughter that they had between them when they were just talking about stars and childhood scars not related to the trauma of his father. It’s easier to keep a relationship full of jokes. He doesn’t like his bad spilling out into it.

And he’s aware of how hypocritical this all sounds. When Connor comes to him crying, upset, angry, he is there for him. Gavin wants to be the one to comfort him. To help bandage his wounds and talk through it. Be the shoulder for him to cry on. It isn’t a terrible drain on their relationship, it isn’t like an infection.

But he can’t quite convince himself that it isn’t how he acts towards Connor. That he is a negative influence on his life.

“You should…” Connor tilts his head, and Gavin returns his smile, the same smallness to it.

He moves away from Connor, finding his shirt and pulling it on over his head. He knows Connor is watching his back. Looking at the galaxy of star tattoos between the scars there. A whole new set of stories to tell. He thinks it would be nice—feeling Connor’s hand trail across them, feel them make careful movements down his spine, tracing the inked circles of the moon phases. Connecting the stars in their various constellations, but Connor doesn’t ask about them now. He doesn’t ask about any of them. He lets Gavin curl back up next to him, close his eyes and let the words tumble from his lips. It is immensely comforting knowing that he’s there to listen. That he _cares._ Nobody has cared about him in a long, long time.

He’d give this boy the stars if he could. Wrapped up just for him. He deserves them. Every last one in the galaxy. And it still wouldn’t be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this for a prompt request over on [my tumblr!](https://norchloe.tumblr.com/post/183653290452/57-or-116-for-the-writing-prompts-0) a short continuation of the boys.

Connor wears that stupid suit on a near constant basis. Like a comfort. The android emblems carefully taken off, nights spent of him sitting on the couch beside Gavin, undoing the embroidery making up the serial number. How many times he’d hesitate on the last two, how many of his jackets still have _-51_ still there.

He sleeps in the button up shirt more often than not, only ever replaced with a hoodie or long sleeved shirt stolen from Gavin’s dresser. The most Gavin will ever see him undressed is on those nights, without the pants or with his shirt unbuttoned. It’s like armor to him—not something that Gavin can blame him for. He covers as much of his own skin as he can, too. Keeping all the scars and the ink hidden underneath.

In the morning, the bed is always cold and empty. Connor always running away from him, never lingering. He’s always dressed, sitting at the table and waiting for the day to begin. _It’s fine,_ Gavin always tells himself. _It’s absolutely fine._ They trade secrets like weapons sometimes. Half hidden in conversation. Gavin won’t ever let Connor know how terrifying it is to wake up and see Connor missing. Eventually he’ll get used to it. Eventually he won’t cling to Connor so tightly. Eventually, this won’t be such a strange relationship. It’ll even out. Balance to something normal.

He dresses in the empty room by himself, changing his clothes, fingers lingering on the drawer of short sleeve shirts he only wears when he’s alone in his apartment. Untouched for the last two years since Connor showed up in his life. No nights spent by himself anymore. Always and forever uncomfortable with the world knowing how damaged he is.

Connor is in the kitchen, carefully setting dishes back down in the cupboards, minimizing noise as much as possible. Hands busied with cleaning, pausing when Gavin speaks.

“Is that my shirt?”

Something flashes across his face. The blankness of it falling to something else as he sets down the mug alongside the others, hand coming up to his arms and shielding them.

“Yes,” he says, almost whispering. “Is that alright?”

He nods, moving across the room towards him. Connor seems to shrink back against the counter, his hand moving up his arm, fingers covering where the edge of the sleeve ends.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

Connor nods weakly, eyes not meeting Gavin’s, stuck on the wall, countertop, floor. Anything not to look at him. His hand moves slowly away, dropping to his side. Gavin looks. He has to look. He has to see what Connor was trying to hide from him. They trade secrets like weapons, but Gavin has never seen or heard of the scar on his arm before. Patched up and barely visible. A raised line along the side.

His fingers are gentle when he traces over it, feeling the smooth edge.

“What happened?”

“First case I was on. I don’t want to talk about it,” Connor speaks quickly. “We should get to work.”

He nods, but his hand moves to Connor’s chest, stops him where he stands and leans upwards, placing a kiss against his jaw.

“I love you,” he whispers, moving his lips to Connor’s. Light and brief. It’s always the thing he falls back on when he doesn’t know how to comfort Connor when he’s upset. Like three little words can help.

 Connor hesitates for a moment before he kisses him back, keeping it much more limited than what they usually do. Gavin understands it. The nerves and anxiety of revealing a secret part of oneself. He was the opposite. When he showed Connor his scars, he wanted to kiss him so that Connor would be too distracted to discern what they were caused by. But he understands why Connor has shut down, why it is so much more difficult to pretend a simple kiss would be able to distract from the fact someone hurt him before.

“Can I wear your jacket, too?”

Gavin smiles, and he nods, letting Connor leave his side. He turns, watching him pull the jacket on, the way it doesn’t fit him quite properly, but also the way he buries himself in it, the way he hesitates with it pulled close around him. He looks so much more human like this, wearing something other than the suit. No markings on him to show he’s an android anymore. Not even the LED that Gavin was sad to see go, a little bit nervous that he wouldn’t have the yellow and red to tell him if something was wrong. He doesn’t want Connor to be human. He never wanted Connor to be human. But for a brief moment, he can imagine them growing old together. Both wrinkled and worn with age. They’re always so imbalanced. Connor will live on after he dies, and that hurts more than he cares to admit. That he won’t be the love of Connor’s life. That he could live for a thousand years and love people far more than he’ll ever love Gavin.

“Gavin?”

“I’m coming,” he says, moving across the room, taking Connor’s outstretched hand. “Let’s go.”

Connor tugs him out the door, lets Gavin fall a little closer, arm wrapped around his waist, head resting against his shoulder. Needing to be closer. Always closer. Terrified forever that Connor is a dream or that someday he’ll disappear.

“Hey,” Connor whispers, a kiss pressed against his forehead. “I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> [hmu on my tumblr](https://norchloe.tumblr.com/)


End file.
